The Arden Craft Shop Museum will close on Sunday, October 7, so we can install our new exhibition, "They Gave Us Good Leave to Wander: Celebrating 70 Years of ACRA." The museum will re-open on Sunday, October 21, at 1pm for the opening of the new exhibition. We hope you will join us then!

The Arden Craft Shop Museum partnered with Arden resident Jeff Martin to put on a Pickin’ Picnic on the Village Green on Sunday, July 15, 2018. Everyone brought their favorite summertime dish to share and it was quite a feast. The Museum opened the Bernie Schwab Room for use by the picnicking folks. It rained early that morning but the Green was dry by the afternoon when volunteers set up for the event. All sorts of games were played on the grass, including a full setup for volleyball.​

The country bluegrass band, FY5, from Colorado, played two sets in the Frank Stephens Open Air Theater. The music that filled the summer night was very much enjoyed.

​It was a friendly, relaxed affair for all ages to enjoy. All you had to do was bring food, a donation for the band, and a playful attitude! Thanks to Jeff for the brilliant idea and pulling it all together.

All the Ardens are welcome hither for a family-friendly, covered dish picnic on The Arden Green followed by two sets of Americana, folk, & bluegrass music at The Field Theater. Music will be provided by the award-winning, quintessential Colorado front-range bluegrass band, FY5. Come and enjoy fun, food, fellowship, and foot-stompin’ music with your neighbors on the beautiful Arden Green. The Arden Craft Shop Museum proudly co-sponsors this event with Jeff Martin.

This event is free to all; however, donations will be collected to support the band. The recommended minimum donation is $10.00 per person. The band will receive 100% of all donations.

Due to the capacity of The Field Theater, “reservations” are required for the music portion of the evening. You may also RSVP to the Arden Craft Shop Museum by email (ardencraftshopmuseum@gmail.com) or via our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Arden-Craft-Shop-Museum-104328559601614/​).

Please be prepared to walk to and from this event. Parking on The Green is not permitted. “Carpooling” or “Shuttling” your belongings to and from The Green, dropping-off, then parking elsewhere and walking back to The Green may be worthwhile.

The Fun: Bring your frisbee, your bocce balls, your croquet set, or the lawn game of your choice. Games, and perhaps volleyball, start about 4:00 PM with food following as folks bring their dishes and the buffet tables get set up.

The Food: We ask that everyone prepare and bring a covered dish, serving utensils and beverage (other than water). Also bring lawn chairs or a blanket to sit on to eat. Plates, cups, napkins, and eating utensils will be provided, along with water.

The Music: The concert will feature the preeminent, quintessential Colorado bluegrass band, FY5. Music will begin by 6:30 PM and should be done by about 8:30-ish. Donations will be collected to support the band, and 100% of donations go to the band.

Colorado’s FY5 proudly swim in the deep currents of American music, playing new songs, well informed of country and bluegrass traditions, but not bound to them. Featuring thoughtful arrangements, strong singing and musicianship, the band strives to connect to listeners with stories of common struggles and big ideas. While their sound evokes timelessness, it is decidedly contemporary, well-traveled 21st century sensibility that informs their songwriting.

This summer the Frank Stephens Memorial Theatre will once again resound with the Bard’s immortal words as the Shakespeare Gild presents Twelfth Night this month. At the ACSM we are also celebrating this entertaining comedy, as we present our summer exhibition - A Baker’s Dozen of Twelfth Nights. In researching this exhibition, we have found at least 12 previous productions of this particular play. There are shows as varied as The Young Actors Showcase, The Delaware Play Festival in the 1950’s, a performance in the Moonlight Theater, and a number of early efforts from the 1920’s. We have gathered together programs, artifacts, and drawings to celebrate this fun-filled Shakespearean tale.

The Museum will be open an hour before each performance held in the Field Theater. We invite all play-goers to get your tickets, save your seat at the theater, and then come over to the Museum for a look at the many other productions of Twelfth Night. It is exciting to know that this merry band of 21st Century players come from a long tradition of Shakespeare in The Ardens.

Our current exhibition Finding a Home in the Ardens is still open and contains many photographs and remembrances of the places we call home in The Ardens. The Museum is open Sunday afternoons from 1-3 and Wednesday evenings from 7:30 to 9; please stop in for a look – you will feel right at home.

"'This Isn't Hull House': Life at Arts and Crafts Communities in the Long-Twentieth Century"

A lecture by Dr. Thomas A. Guiler, Assistant Professor of History and Public Humanities at the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library.

Sunday, April 15, 2018, at 4pm at the Buzz Ware Village Center in Arden, Delaware.

In response to the trauma of industrialization and urbanization in the late-nineteenth century, the Arts and Crafts Movement took America by storm. Art exhibits, factories, workshops, and societies dedicated to handicraft, worker dignity, and the promulgation of beautiful art to the masses sprouted from California to Boston. Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, Elbert Hubbard, William Lightfoot Price, and Frank Stephens were so enamored with the movement that they decided to build entirely new worlds—intentional communities—dedicated to pursuing those ideals. Arden, Rose Valley, Roycroft, and Byrdcliffe not only produced beautiful handcrafted furniture, ceramics, textiles, and books, but also created a vibrant community-life, involving lectures, costume parties, classes, theater, and even baseball, where big personalities fell in love, clashed bitterly, and strove to form an alternative way to live in an industrial society. This presentation will examine the social and cultural lives of these communities, the individuals who inhabited them, and, in some cases, how these communities interacted with each other. But Arden, Rose Valley, Byrdcliffe, and Roycroft are not time capsules frozen in the early-twentieth century; they continue to be lively places for art, craft, and community. As such, this lecture will examine the long history of these communities to demonstrate how that history and spirit lives on in the present.

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Donations to the BWVC are gratefully accepted.​

​Interested in learning more about ACSM's photographic collection and how to find the images you're looking for? Please join us for a FREE workshop on Wednesday, March 28th, at 7:30pm at the museum. We will discuss our collection and the best ways to search for photographs in our on-line database. Please feel free to bring your laptop and any questions you may have!

On March 10, the Arden Craft Shop Museum and Archives Committee prepared a wonderful crab cake feast for the Dinner Gild's Saturday night community dinner.

Linda Toman took the lead organizing and planning the menu, shopping, and dividing up the tasks for preparation to make dinner for 145 people.Everyone participated and we had a great time while doing it. Everyone loved the crab cakes, herb-roasted potatoes, Asian fusion salad, zesty carrots, and apple-blueberry pizza.

It was all delicious!

Archives handed out a short survey about the Arden Craft Shop Museum and got back 48 responses from the packed house. We will review them at our next meeting.

Thanks also to Barbara Macklem for her kind donation of 26 tiny ceramic houses that we used to decorate the tables to call attention to our current museum exhibition, "Finding a Home in the Ardens: Camps, Cottages and Castles.” Someone at each table was randomly selected to take home the little house on their table. Everyone seemed to be thrilled to take home their very own houses!